A Journal of From

Practical and Useful

Vacuum Technology
By Phil Danielson

WHY CREATE A VACUUM?

Creating a vacuum has become a fairly common and often routine
undertaking, but the commonness of the activity doesn’t belie the cost
and difficulty of doing so. People struggle with vacuum technology on a
consistent basis for a very good reason. Vacuums, to some degree, are
a requisite part of carrying out processes and/or are an integral part of a
product. Every vacuum practitioner has been asked, at some point, just
why they would need to go through all that trial, travail, and trouble to
the point where they are risking the loss of their very last marble. “I
have to do that, to do whatever it is I do,” might be a temporarily
acceptable answer, but there are very real and simple answers.
Basically, it’s necessary to remove a certain number of molecules from a
container (chamber) in order to do whatever. If, then, you break the
subject down a little bit; the question isn’t quite so daunting.

If we consider that creating a vacuum is nothing more than removing

gas molecules from a container until the number of molecules per
volume is less than the number of molecules in the same volume
outside the container, we can begin to develop a set of reasons for
doing so. This lowered molecular population can be viewed as
pressure, number of molecules, distance between molecules, number of
molecular collisions, or number of collisions of molecules with a surface.
Although all of these views are physically interconnected and mutually
interdependent, any one of these possible reasons can be carried into a
process description with its attendant requirements and justifications.

Both physical and chemical effects come into play either separately or in
combination.

Physical Effects
Physical effects come into play where the physical properties of the gas
or gases will either be the main concern of the process or will help or
inhibit the process.

Pressure Differential
If gas molecules are removed from a pipe or vessel, there will be fewer
impacts between molecules and a surface than would occur on the
outside of the vessel where it is exposed to the atmosphere. The fewer
the molecules, the fewer the collisions, and the lower the total force that
will result. As with many physical effects, this can also be used to
measure the pressure by using the pressure differential to apply a force
 that is proportional to the pressure. This is easily
To To
unknown reference
demonstrated by the U-tube manometer where a
pressure pressure liquid column is balanced against atmospheric
pressure by reacting to the differential pressure to
result in a measurable liquid column height as
shown in Figure 1.
∆h

In a practical process sense, this pressure

Working differential resulting from removing molecules to
Fluid reduce the number of molecules colliding with a
surface can be used to provide force in both
dynamic and static modes. Dynamic applications
often are used to move solid or liquid material
though a pipe or duct where the higher
atmospheric pressure drives the material toward
the lower pressure in an attempt to equalize the
Figure 1. U-tube manometer pressure of both sides. Examples where motive
force is required such as the pneumatic transfer
tube, vacuum actuated filtration, or even the first subway abound. In a
static sense, pressure differential is often used to provide a fixing in
place condition such as vacuum chucks or hold downs. Figure 2 shows
the pressure differential in psi as it varies with pressure.

torr vs psi
Heat Transfer
3
Heat transfer at atmospheric pressure
10
is predominantly effected by either di-
10
2 rect transfer during gas molecule-to-
molecule collisions or by molecular
10
1 motion convection. If two objects at
differing temperatures are placed in a
0 chamber at atmospheric pressure,
torr

10
Heat will begin to flow from the hotter
10
-1
to the colder through the gas
molecules; but if the pressure is
10
-2
reduced by removing some of the gas
molecules, the distance between the
-3
10
10 -5 10 -4 10 -3 10 -2 10 -1 10 0 10 1 10 2
molecules will become longer and the
psi number of molecular collisions will
become smaller resulting in a
Figure 2. Pressure differential in psi vs. pressure in reduction of heat flow. Lowering the
torr. thermal conductivity of the heat
transfer medium (gas molecules) will
mean that the hotter object will tend to retain its heat. If the pressure is
continually reduced, the heat flow will also be continually reduced.
Thus, the vacuum between the hot and cold objects will become a
thermal insulator with the degree of insulation determined by the degree
of vacuum (paucity of molecules) between them. This insulating effect
 of vacuum leads to a number of practical applications. Perhaps best
known is the venerable dewar flask or thermos bottle shown in Figure 3
that is commonly used to keep things hot or cold. This easily leads to
other applications such as transfer lines for liquefied gases that are
surrounded by an annular tube with a vacuum
between the tubes to prevent heat from reaching
the liquid and causing vaporization.

Vacuum
Insulation
As with mechanical effects from pressure
differentials, thermal conductivity can be used as a
pressure gauging technique where a wire is heated
by the application of constant power and the heat
loss of the wire is indicated by its temperature
which is either measured directly (thermocouple
gauge) or by its resistance (pirani gauge).
Hot or
Cold
Material The same effects as found with thermal
conductivity can also be applied to sound or
electrical insulation with some specific complex
differences.

Vaporization
Figure 3. Dewar flask schematic view.
Virtually any material will vaporize if you get it hot
enough, but vacuum processes tend to be mostly
concerned with the vaporization of fluids. A fluid that has any volatility at
all at room temperature will vaporize sooner or later at atmospheric
pressure. In terms of a practical process, sooner will usually be better
than later, so means to increase the vaporization rate can be important.
Since vaporization is really molecules of the liquid leaving the surface
and not returning as liquid, increasing the rate of vaporization will mean
increasing the number of molecules leaving in a given time.

At atmospheric pressure, the rate of loss will be relatively slow because

of the high number of molecules directly above the surface. This means
that a vaporizing molecule will probably immediately impact a gas
molecule, lose its energy, and return to the liquid state. If, however, the
liquid is within a chamber that has been evacuated to some extent,
fewer molecules will be above the surface. This means that a
vaporizing molecule will have a lesser chance of impacting a gas
molecule because there are fewer molecules to hit, bigger spaces
between molecules, and fewer molecules impacting the liquid surface.

A practical example would be the difference in the boiling point of water

between valley and mountaintop. When a liquid boils, it has reached a
critical point where the heat being added to the liquid is instantly
translated into vaporization so the temperature of the liquid will not
change. As altitude is increased, the pressure is reduced so there are
 fewer molecules the inhibit vaporization and less energy is required for
the vaporizing molecules to overcome the collisional losses from the
ambient gas molecules. Figure 4 shows the difference in the boiling
point of water at various altitudes.

A practical vacuum process would be vacuum distillation where it is

necessary to separate two liquids with different vapor pressures.
Flowing a film of the liquid mixture into an evacuated container at a fixed
temperature would force or allow the most volatile liquid to vaporize at a
low temperature because fewer molecules would be available to inhibit
vaporization than would be present at atmospheric pressure. Hence,
fast distillation for a practical process. It must be understood that the
container would need to be dynamically pumped to maintain a lowered
pressure or the escaping molecules would soon cause the pressure to
Boiling Point of Water at Various Altitudes increase and would then lower the liquid’s
110 800
vaporization rate. An example of this kind of
process would be the distillation of
105
700
mechanical pump oil where it is necessary to
100
remove the high vapor pressure volatile
torr
600
components before it can be used in a
vacuum pump.
Degrees, Centigrade

95
torr

90 500
Chemical Effects
85
Boiling Point 400 Chemical effects come into play in most
80
cases where the chemical reactivity and
300 properties of the gases will either help or
75 inhibit a process. This often concerns not
70 200 only the particular gases in question, but also
0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 their respective concentrations.
altitude, ft

Figure 4. Boiling point of water at various altitudes. Removing Reactive Gases

Any container, chamber, or plumbing will
have been exposed to atmospheric air at some time during its history.
Before any of these are used to contain or transfer pure process gases,
they need to be evacuated to minimize the detrimental effects of the
gases inside before the pure gas is introduced. If this were not done, it
would be much like pouring a purified chemical solution into a dirty
beaker. The degree of purity of the gas required would dictate the
ultimate vacuum that was necessary since the population of the residual
gases would all be considered as contaminants. For example, an
oxygen pressure of 10-3 torr would result in a contamination level of
1 PPM if the container was backfilled to atmospheric pressure with pure
gas. This simple residual gas pressure concept can be misleading since
the inner surfaces would be covered with desorbing water molecules
which would bring the contamination level up to 10’s of PPM once the
surface equilibrated with the pure gas. Hence, the total number of
molecules in the container would be the main concern in this type of
effect.
A practical application to illustrate this effect would be the venerable
incandescent light bulb which would be evacuated prior to backfilling
with inert gas. Any water vapor or oxygen left in the bulb’s body prior to
backfilling become a chemically active contaminant which would react
with the hot tungsten filament during operation and cause premature
burnout.

Protection
Since many materials are subject to chemical reactions with air, it
becomes necessary to remove molecules from the vicinity of the surface
being processed. The only reasonable way to do this is to place the
material in a chamber and use the atmosphere, or lack of it, to protect
the material from a chemical reaction. In this case, the number of
molecules of chemically reactive gas impacting the surface would be of
prime concern.

In some processes, the chamber would be evacuated using the same

concerns discussed above in that the chamber would be backfilled with
inert gas following evacuation to remove as many reactive gas
molecules as the process dictated. In others, the entire process would
take place under vacuum to protect the material from chemical reaction.

Metallurgical processes are prime examples where a furnace might be

evacuated and then backfilled with inert gas or hydrogen (reducing
atmosphere) or the entire thermal process might be carried out while the
chamber was under dynamic pumping conditions. In fact, such
processes as vacuum brazing are often a combination in that the
furnace, following initial evacuation, is pre-heated while filled with a
hydrogen pressure, and just prior to reaching brazing temperature, the
chamber is evacuated and then given a temperature spike to the brazing
alloy flow temperature.

Combined Physical and Chemical Effects

Thin film processes are prime examples of those processes that require
a combination of physical and chemical effects. Consider the simple
example of filamentary evaporation of aluminum onto a substrate as
shown in Figure 5. A stranded tungsten filament is directly heated by
high current until an aluminum staple melts and wets the filament. If the
molecular concentration of chemically active gases is too high, the
filament will oxidize and burn out. Additionally, the hot aluminum will
oxidize. In this case, the number of impacts of active gas molecules
with the surface are the prime concern. Although the heating could be
done under an atmosphere of inert gas, this is only a segment of the full
set of process parameter requirements.

Since the idea is to evaporate aluminum molecules onto the substrate, it

must be possible for the evaporated aluminum to reach the substrate.
 If the number of molecules between the evaporating aluminum and the
substrate were too high, aluminum-to-gas molecule collisions would be
so high that the aluminum would probably not be able to reach the
substrate due to energy loss due to collisions. Additionally, a slightly
lower gas molecule concentration could easily cause enough scatter in
the concentration of evaporating aluminum that the film on the substrate
will lack acceptable uniformity.

Conclusions
Bell Jar It is apparent, then, that all
vacuum processes have
Vacuum
particular requirements in terms
of the number of residual
Substrate molecules, and of course, the
identity of those molecules in
terms of chemical activity. An
understanding of the reasons
why those molecular effects in
High-current terms of their pressure, number
feedthrough of molecules, distance between
molecules, number of molecular
collisions, or number of collisions
of molecules with a surface can
Filament
lead to a better understanding of
Pump the process under consideration.
Further thinking about the effects
can then lead to a better process
as improvements are
Figure 5. System for simple filamentary evaporation of c o n t em p l a t e d wi t h t h e s e
aluminum. selfsame effects in mind.
Further, considering the
molecules can open better ways to communicate that understanding of
the process.

A version appeared in Vacuum & Thinfilm, July 1999.

From The Vacuum Lab of Phil Danielson, 630-983-2674

pdanielson@vacuumlab.com www.vacuumlab.com